This Is Why the Water in One Michigan City Is Poisoned

What if you woke up one day and turned on the faucet to brush your teeth, only to find rusty, orange, contaminated water coming out of the drain? That’s the reality thousands in Flint, Michigan have been dealing with, forced to use water filters and test kits to prevent from consuming dangerous lead poisoned water. Worst of all: this was a manmade disaster and could’ve been avoided.

How did the water get poisoned?

Back in 2014, the city of Flint needed to save money and decided to do so by switching its water supply: instead of taking H2O from Detroit, it would use the Flint River. Just four months after the switch went into effect, a boil water advisory went into effect.

While the residents kept drinking the water, General Motors slowly stopped using the Flint River flow. It was too dangerous for car parts, but the state was letting its residents drink it.

The problem with the water was lead. “This is because Flint River has much higher chloride content, which leaches lead from plumbing materials into drinking water,” the Flint Water Study revealed in September.

What are the risks?

When humans, especially children, are exposed to lead, their lives are put at risk. Lead poisoning causes over a half million cases of intellectual disability in children around the world every year. Lead can also cause kidney damage, miscarriage, and comas — with such dangerous consequences, no amount of lead consumption is safe, and officials in Michigan should’ve moved immediately to keep lead out of the water.

Who is responsible?

Because of economic issues, Flint went into a state of emergency and was turned over to a state manager in 2011. “[The manager had to] simply do one thing and one thing only and that’s cut the budget — at any cost,” Michigan congressman Dan Kildee told CNN. Water was one thing Flint could save money on.

Within a year of the problem, Detroit gave Flint the chance to use the big city’s water supply once again, but an emergency manager said no. Jerry Ambrose, the manager, was worried about the money the water would cost down the road: about a million bucks a month.

By February of last year, the Environmental Protection Agency and the state’s Department of Environmental Quality started rumbling about lead concerns…but residents still drank the water.

Six months later, outside experts concluded the water was lead poisoned. “When [my team and I] saw that it was getting into children and when we knew the consequences, that’s when I think we began not to sleep,” Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, associate professor in pediatrics at Michigan State University, told CNN in September.

But the state’s environmental quality department disagreed. Having a lead issue like this was bad for the state’s business: sick people are expensive, a new water supply is expensive, and Michigan was looking to keep Flint cheap. It’s difficult to calculate how many people suffered because of delayed action to solving Flint’s water crisis, but we know that too many residents had to live with dangerous water because of political interests.

There’s debate about how high the Flint water crisis goes: Michigan governor Rick Snyder released hundreds of pages of emails about Flint and all of the communications point to a lengthy blame game. The emails showed the governor’s office knew about the lead danger, but they didn’t feel responsible.

"Of course, some of the Flint people respond by looking for someone to blame instead of working to reduce anxiety,” Dennis Muchmore, Snyder’s former chief of staff, wrote in September of last year. "We can't tolerate increased lead levels in any event, but it's really the city's water system that needs to deal with it.” The governor didn’t file a state of emergency in Flint until earlier this month — long after the issue was known to his office and after children in his state gulped down dangerous water.

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What happens next?

Residents of Flint are now relying on filters and water test kits and mayor Karen Weaver is happy to have them. The National Guard is also on site to help. “I’m glad the State is putting in resources and we welcome the Michigan National Guard with open arms. However, we also need Federal assistance as we continue to cope with this manmade water disaster,” Weaver said in a statement.

Once the issue bubbled to the surface, both of sinks and politics, a water supply change was made: in mid October, Flint started getting water from Detroit again. But even with that change, there is still lead in the water.

On February 3, the governor will have to speak before Congress. The federal government has stepped up to help, offering $5 million in aid. The governor has asked for more.

How can you help?

There are fundraisers popping up online, one of which Pearl Jam donated $300,000 to. You can send a donation through CrowdRise, and it’ll go to The United Way of Genesee County’s Flint Water Fund.

There’s also a fund for children impacted by lead poisoning which is led by Dr. Hanna-Attisha. “If there was ever a time to invest in our children, it is now,” she said. "Our Flint children deserve every opportunity to be healthy and successful.”

Those in Michigan can drop off cases of water to the Catholic Charities Center for Hope and to the American Red Cross, who will make sure the bottled water gets to those who need it.